old games

All posts tagged old games

Remember the love letter I wrote to Obsidian during a Blaugust Event? After a lot of time, effort, and help from Nash we finally got my old disks running well enough to stream it! We haven’t finished this playthough yet, but I’ll link the two streams that are done here. (The second stream is split into multiple videos because our old ISP was misbehaving that night. Happily, we’ve since switched to a new one and the internet has been worlds better since!)

One of the most interesting writing prompts for Blaugust has been Aywren’s “The Game That Changed My Life.” I’m right on board with her about Final Fantasy IV (SNES II) being one of those games, but she’s done such a beautiful job with her posts already that I’m going to pick a different game. 🙂 I considered Riven, since it’s my favorite in the Myst series, but Myst was the one that started it all. Continue Reading

I love my job. That’s not sarcastic, either – whether I’m playing with kittens or cleaning out kennels, I love every moment. Still, 9 hours at a job that gets very physical is not a lot of fun while trying to beat an infected tooth. My body wanted a whole lot of rest today and is less than pleased I couldn’t oblige. Tired body, tired mind.

This is a good day to take advantage of one of the writing prompts that Belghast has so kindly offered us. I’m grabbing the same one Dallian used:

What is your preferred gaming platform? Are you a multi-platform gamer or do you stick to one platform all the time? What is it about that gaming platform that you like?

Obsidian is a game I’ve been meaning to post about for some time. I’m always baffled that more people haven’t played it, even though Rocket Science Games went out of business shortly after it came out. The commercials were eerie and memorable; I would have expected more people to be intrigued. It’s definitely one of my all-time favorite games!

I ordered USB versions of the SNES and N64 controllers (NES was on backorder) during a recent online sale. I didn’t pick them up to use with emulators, though. I ordered them because I own a number of games on Steam that seem like they might play nicely with the controllers I grew up using. There’s some nostalgia involved in wanting to play with those specific controllers, of course, but that’s not the entire story. Continue Reading

I’ve spent the last few days rediscovering an older game, one that I mostly missed the first time around. The short version of its history (with thanks to Dilandau3000’s Let’s Play videos and the Uru website) is that when Uru: Ages Beyond Myst came out in 2003, the live multiplayer aspect planned for it was delayed. That live online portion continued to be delayed for official release, until finally being scrapped completely. Fans of the game and beta testers managed to keep a live version going on their own servers, and later on an official Cyan server, until it was picked up by GameTap in 2007…and then canceled. Cyan eventually got the rights back, releasing it as open source on their supported servers in 2010 as free to play. There is an option to donate towards server maintenance, but it’s not required. This back and forth is why the current incarnation is referred to as “Myst Online: Uru Live (Again).” Continue Reading

Somewhere in the middle of chatting about The Secret World on a stream for another game, ’cause I’m like that, I was reminded of something I used to love in my games that doesn’t seem to happen as often anymore – the need for a pen and a pad of paper. [I suppose, light spoiler warnings for the pics I’m using later in the post. Myst and Obsidian are awfully old for spoiler warnings though, and the TSW mission is from one of the earlier missions in the Savage Coast area.]

I remember making maps for The Legend of Zelda and jotting down melodies in Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. The old text games of course; I needed my own maps and notes there. The Myst games, before they added a screenshot option and less so after, were responsible for plenty of time spent writing and drawing things out. I think I took notes for most of my early PC games, there were always a few puzzles that made more sense if I wrote it out or a maze that became much easier if you drew a map.

Am I the only one who feels like participating in the game in that way drew me into the story and world of the game more? Perhaps I should rephrase since I know plenty of folks who agree with me, it just feels like games are more often made to streamline that part of gaming right out the door. Continue Reading